Heroes & Victims
by Miss Ami-chan
Summary: Heero's been shot and it sets Quatre thinking about his station within the group. Just a little one shot that got knocking around in my head a bit ago, and I finally got it edited enough to republish.


"You shouldn't think about things like that," Heero sits up next to me, pulling himself stiffly.

I can feel myself going cold.

"But I do…" Quatre sighs, sitting down, "I wonder…sometimes, about infiltration missions, something you can't take the Gundam in for, you have to do on foot…and what would happen, if I came face to face with a soldier."

"I don't think you'll go on infiltration missions," Heero says, with that firmness in his voice, "You haven't been selected for any so far."

"Each of us has skills that we were selected for," Trowa says, from the little Coleman stove, where he's heating up some water, "Engineering, piloting…diplomacy seems more your thing."

Heero strips off the tank top as Trowa brings the water over. I go into the bag for a clean rag to wipe off the dried blood from the wound.

"Makes a change, ne, Heero? You getting shot."

I can feel Trowa giving me that look.

"It didn't go through," Heero says, ignoring both of the comments, and going on. Quatre stays over the other side of the room, not wanting to see, "So, you'll have to get it out."

"Quatre—if you can't handle a bullet wound, you won't be able to handle face-to-face-anything," I say, "You should come look at least. It's not—that—bad."

He swallows, "It's not that I'm not curious…" He moves a little closer, "I just…isn't it painful? You don't seem to be in any pain."

Heero doesn't answer that one.

Trowa has disappeared over to the bag the bandages came from, "There's no antiseptic."

"Anti-what?" I ask, taking my knife to dig the bullet out.

Quatre had moved closer and pales back a little.

"Antiseptic." Trowa repeats.

"To clean the wound." Heero clarifies, "Disinfect."

"Kill germs."

"I don't..." I shake my head, "You mean like soap?"

Trowa gives a strangled sigh.

I can touch the bullet with the tip of the knife and dig down a little deeper. Heero's grip on my shoulder tightens, as I edge it upwards, until it comes out, clinking onto the floor, the wound bleeding more heavily. Quatre disappears. Trowa comes back, as I push the towel over the wound again. Heero holds it in place so that I can clean off the knife. Trowa takes the bullet and looks at it.

"Hm. Semi-automatic." He tosses it, "seems to all be in one piece."

Quatre comes back as I flip the knife closed, standing up to stash it again, "That's some grip you've got, Heero. I thought pain was conditioned out of you?"

"I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that knife," he responds.

"You guys do the infiltration a lot." Quatre says, "You really think I wouldn't ever have to?"

"As Trowa said, we each have our skills. I was—trained—to do this sort of thing. Duo survived by doing it."

I wave a hand, "No big deal." I go to my bag, and get my flask, and part of the bandage roll that's clean.

"Now-is not the time." Trowa starts.

"No-no. You want something that'll kill germs, right? If this doesn't do that...it's not worth having."

"I guess it would have to be different..." Quatre says, putting the curtain back into place, and turning back into the room, "Killing face to face...in person..." he shudders, "Does that make me cold? That I can do it facelessly but not the other way?"

"You shouldn't talk like that," Trowa says.

"If I don't talk about it, I'm just going to think about it," Quatre persists, "That's worse isn't it? Having it running through your mind...and not saying anything?"

Heero takes hold of my hand, "I think it's clean enough. Bandage it."

"We KILL people, Trowa!" He says, "They probably have families, they may even have children younger than us...and we kill them."

"Surely you knew that before you started this!" I tie off the bandage, and tuck away the end, Heero shrugs his shirt back on, carefully, "It's not like we're going to drop down onto Earth in these huge machines, with masses of weapons and ask them out for tea. Maybe you should have stayed home."

Quatre stares at me. I know...it's the wrong thing to say, why did I say it?

"That doesn't help, Maxwell."

"I know that!" I turn on Trowa, "but it's the truth, right? Or would you prefer we lie about this, talk about roses and fluffy bunnies or some shit?"

Trowa turns around looking out of the window, "Oh, yes, because you're the only one among us who knows how tough it is to just breathe."

"—and what's that supposed to mean?" I ask him.

"Just that we don't want to hear about the hell hole of L2. You're not the only one who's had a bad childhood, okay?"

"He hasn't gone on that much," Quatre says, quietly, "Unless I missed something. About the only thing I remember is L2 has no light, and is…and something about there being a virus…"

Trowa doesn't say anything, for a moment, he just looks at us.

Have I gone on about it? I know I talk—far too much, but I talk about other things so I don't have to think about everything else, being away from that, maybe it's having to explain things like antiseptic to me? What did Cathy say about their childhood? Growing up with the circus because their parents were dead…

"I know not everyone has a golden childhood," I tell him, "Q-ball—,"

"Don't call me that."

"Quatre was lucky, well luckier, but now he's less prepared for what to do with things like this mayhem and violence. The rest of us are. Maybe I should just shut up before I cause a fight—a further fight again." I look over at Heero, saying absolutely nothing as usual. Three orphans and a rich kid, and whatever Wufei is, 'a loner' seems about the only thing we know. Well, loner and Chinese guy. It really does sound like a bad movie.

Heero leans back his head. His eyes are closed. I can't tell if he's going to sleep or not. His breathing never changes. Freaked me out when we shared a room back at that school near the island base. I thought he stayed up all night—made me stay up all the first night in case he decided to harvest parts of 'Scythe again.

I didn't shoot him this time and still I feel guilty. Him and me together on a mission and he comes away hurt. It's not like I've never been scratched doing anything but he's Mr. Perfect so I kinda feel he was taking it for me or something.

We were fine all through the base itself. Pick up the various bits of intel that were wanted, even managed to nick some supplies. No one saw us until we were leaving, and even then it seemed like mostly pot shots until we got to the truck.

I was leaning out of the passenger window watching back, shooting at those who would be close enough to damage to the truck. Heero was driving. Me, on the phone back to 'base' letting them know we retrieved the package and picked up some 'oh so cute' things for the next time we have a party and they just have to let us know when they're free to do that, and in the meantime, we're off to go look at some 'cars' perhaps 'yellow' and 'red' and will be in touch just as soon as we find some we like.

I turned back to say something funny to Heero about all the code phrases and see the blood on his shirt. He never said a damn word about it. I like to think I can handle pain I'll tend to whine and make a big deal if it's something minor, but I'm pretty sure any time I've been shot I said something about it at the time, usually something rude that would make Quatre blush.

He, on the other hand, carried on like he'd stubbed his toe. I continue to be amazed and I shouldn't I saw him rip through steel cuffs.

Trowa hands me a bowl of soup, and takes another to Quatre. He hasn't given any to Heero probably figures he'll ask if he wants some. He goes back and sits by the stove and gets his own.

Quatre is sipping slowly, but then the soup is pretty damn hot. I blow on it a bit hoping someone will say something. Quatre'd been going through his pack looking for something, but no one speaks. This silence sucks. My brain is gonna find all kinds of things it can dredge up to eat away at me. If I don't talk about something I'll start bleeding from everywhere from all the pressure in my head. The whole point is not to think about what went on before, God, I need a…

"I'm sorry I brought up what I did," Quatre says.

I could kiss him for breaking the silence if he wasn't taking the blame on himself.

Me and my big stupid mouth need a good chunk of the blame for that one but I should have known he would try and smooth things over that way, "Q—," I start then stop, "Quatre, it's not your fault. My mouth overloads my ass all the time," I look at Trowa given he should follow on, but he's not talking, just staring at his soup bowl.

We have a full days travel before we meet up with the Chinese dragon. I can see this is going to be a colony of fun.

"You're right in some ways," Quatre says, eating veggies and meat from the bottom of his bowl, "it is awkward to not deal well with blood and guts with what we're doing…that's exactly why I worry about being sent on an infiltration mission. I would most surely fail."

"Yeah…well, if I went to try and negotiate passage through a town and repairs like you did for us after the whole train convoy deal I'd probably fail too. I can barely speak English half the time and we weren't anywhere that did. I'd be all, 'You'," I make a pointing gesture, " 'HELP?'" I make another sign, "Completely awful. You're a freakin' genius Q…Quatre."

Quatre's laughing at my mad signing skills, which is something. Trowa still says nothing. He gets up, takes Quatre's empty bowl along with his own and walks outside. We both watch him go. I know enough not to go out after him, I'm probably the last person he wants to talk to after just before. I glance over at Heero who has sat back up, and is watching the door. I can't read his expression, but I didn't really expect to be able to.

"Oh, hey, you want something to eat?" I ask him.

He just nods, so I scramble over to sort that out. Quatre gives another look to the door Trowa went out of, "How are you feeling Heero-san?" he asks.

"I'll be functional by the time we get to our destination," Heero replies.

Quatre looks for a moment as though he's going to say that's not what he was meaning but he drops it, and after a few more moments excuses himself outside.

"We have a long journey," Heero says, as I hand him down the soup. I have a brief moment's fancy about spoon-feeding him but I doubt he would want that, "it seems it might be best if they take one of the vehicles and we take the other, or you and Quatre in one and Trowa and I in the other. We don't need any incidents along the road."

"No shit," I answer, "I may be stupid, Heero, but I know enough to know Trowa and I don't need to share a vehicle right now. I can't deal with that much quiet."

"Glad to hear there'll be no arguments from you," he answers, and brings the soup bowl up to his mouth to drink some out of it, "Rest now. You'll need to drive the first leg."


End file.
